Owning and operating a large piece of earthmoving equipment can be expensive. Operating cost is a function of efficient use and the impact of carrying too small or too large a load, operating in the wrong gear, etc., can dramatically increase that cost. However, the factors that impact efficient use are often hard to measure because soil conditions, operator selections such as gear and engine speed, and ground slope at the worksite all effect efficiency. Further, operators are often provided with an overload of information intended to improve efficiency but which may often simply overwhelm the operator and cause them to ignore potentially useful information.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,557,726 presents, among a number of other items, a numerical indication of actual conditions and a numerical indication of the limit for that value. The operator may use a button to select between actual load/safe working load or lift/operating radius and then as either an absolute value or percentage. However, the operator is tasked with determining to what extent the current performance deviates from the limit value as well as to decide which of the selectable outputs is most relevant.